Code X: Operation H:Elite
by Lass Cherrie
Summary: ON HIATUS / Contest entry for ZephyrFiction's 'Greatest Mew Submission Story' - head to his profile and check it out! 4 humans given the powers to destroy the Mews have only a month to fulfil their task before their lives are irreparably altered.
1. Author's Note

Greetings, Fictioners!

So, just for a little clarification: ZephyrFiction is currently holding a competition. And it sounds good. Head to his profile to check it out.

In a nutshell, I'm going to enter it :)

So, here's the deal. I need FOUR characters, submitted by other author/esses, to be my main characters.

That's cool. I can do that :)

But, see, I need the characters!

That's where you guys come in (winks)

So, I need TWO male and TWO female characters to comprise my quartet of heroes for this story. I've just thought of what the story will be, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be quite radical. I'm excited – I want to write it! There's a very lame, brief summary of the story down further below; please read!

Mew Academy peeps, do not fret; chapter ten is almost done. I'll be posting it next week. Yay! (cheers with pom poms) My dedication and priority for MA will not wane because of this story.

So, people, to enter, simply fill out the form below, and post in a review. That worked good for Mew Academy, so I'm doing it that way again :)

I'll post up the prologue after the selection process, and then the story will be under way!

But a note to anyone entering: when you submit your character, make him/her as DETAILED as you possibly can. As much information as you can give me would be appreciated. Just take that extra few minutes to REALLY think about your character and make them as interesting as possible.

XXX

Name:

Meaning:

Age:

Height:

Weight:

Physical Description:

Normal Fashion:

Hobbies:

Fears:

Strengths:

Weaknessses:

Personality Summary:

Interesting Quirks:

XXX

So, that's all. Note: nothing Mew! Well, there's a specific reason for that, believe me! Ooh, this is cool; I really, really like this idea! (twitching in seat, itching to begin writing). I shall give you a brief summary of it right here:

**Fed up with repetitive failures of their plans to overcome the Mew Team, the Cyniclons decide to take a new approach to defeating the human magical-girls. Rather than creating mutant animals using Chimera Anima, Pai's brilliance leads him to the invention of a tablet, which, when surgically implanted into the mind of a human, has the ability to provide said host with temporary super-human abilities. In short, the human would become no less than a super-powered human, or, as the Cyniclons call them, the Human Elite, or H-Elite. Keeping the tablet a secret from Deep Blue, Pai undergoes research to find four human beings with the inner qualities that will make them compatible with his latest technology. Upon selection, the four humans are kidnapped and held hostage while they undergo the process that will make them H-Elite. Of course, super-powers seem pretty cool, but they come with a price. The effects of the tablet last a mere month, after which, the effects of the drug technology will transform the humans into Cyniclons – permanently **(A/N atm I'm not sure if I still want this to be the ultimatum; it could be either mutation, or death)**. However… there is _always_ an antidote.**

**The Mission: Use newly acquired superpowers to destroy the Mew Mews.**

**The Prize: If successful, the antidote will be administered, and their normal human lives will be restored.**

**The Price: If unsuccessful, the humans will become an irreversible part of Cyniclon society - goodbye, Humanity. **(A/N or as mentioned above, they die.)

**With so much at stake, and so little time, the H-Elite must act quickly, or the damage to their lives will be irreparable. Besides, killing one of their own can't be _that_ difficult…  
... Can it? **

**And so begins 'Code X: Operation H-Elite'.**

Believe me, peoples… There's SO much more to it than that crappy little summary, which leaves out SO much more important stuff which I really wanted to tell you all, but it would ruin the story! So, yes, it seems a little far-fetched right now, but I'LL BE ABLE TO PULL IT OFF! Trust me, this is gonna work, and it's gonna be awesome!

So, hurry along children and submit, submit, submit!

Cheerio for now,

Cherrie-Sakura

xx


	2. Prologue

**Hey Fictioners,**

**So, this is just a little chapter to prove to you guys that this WILL be a good story :) Don't worry, there are no character introductions in this chapter. It's just the prologue. This story needed one, so I managed to write one without giving away anything unnecessary.**

**Thanks to those who have submitted characters so far. To anyone else yet to submit: PLEASE DO!**

**Granted, I only started this story, like, yesterday or the day before, but I'm still a little impatient to get this show on the road. I don't want this to be another Mew Academy O_O**

**Read on, MacDuffers!**

* * *

**... PROLOGUE ...**

* * *

It's amazing how the value of Time changes with age.

When you're a kid, Time is something trivial, unimportant. It's only point in childhood is to alert you of when the sun rises and sets, so you know when playtime begins and ends, and to announce when your favourite TV program is airing in the afternoon. Looking back on childhood, those lazy days of summer break felt like they dragged on endlessly, like one long dream. You ended up looking forward to going back to school, because the days at home just took so long to end. Time was a luxury back then.

Those luxurious days were over.

Now, as we pelted our way, twisting and turning, through the seemingly infinite maze of corridors, Time was nothing short of a curse. It was like there was an hourglass somewhere, with our names on it, the beautiful glimmering grains of soft sand slipping through the vial, gathering in an innocent mound in the fat round bulb of glass that symbolised our fate.

And the hourglass was smiling at us, because with each speck of sand that rained from the pile at the top, more life slipped from our mutated bodies. The hourglass smiled because of the simple power it had over us – the four simple teenagers whose lives were about to be irreparably changed. Again.

With every heartbeat that raced in our screaming chests, another two were lost. Like a countdown. Like a clock, with only a certain amount of ticks left until it would come to the point where it had no ticks _left_ to tick. And then it would stop – freeze – forever.

We ran. We ran because Time was of the absolute essence. We ran because the few short moments we had left were vital. If we didn't do something now, our whole world would be twisted beyond recognition, beyond repair. Beyond saving. We ran because they were after us; they were onto us, and now that they knew the truth, they were going to kill us. People like us were simply too dangerous – too much of a threat – to allow to live. After what we'd been through, all we had known and seen, it was miracle they hadn't disposed of us sooner.

Our shallow breaths came in harsh, ragged gasps, small, consistent reminders of the life that was wasting away inside each of us. The more our breathing rasped, the more energy drained from our exhausted limbs. Science was playing its part in the cruel tale that was ruining our lives. Every stride was like torture; our muscles protested, burning and shrieking and feeling like they would rip apart at any moment.

But we forced ourselves on. Because if you didn't fight for your miserable, pathetic, cruelly-interfered-with life, regardless of the pain, the terror, the torture that had been inflicted upon it; no matter how twisted, how demented, how resemblant of a freakish nightmare it had become, then what the hell did you have to fight for?

We fled on endlessly, four young human beings so diminished even our shadows seemed unrecognisable. We fled in terrified silence, too intent on surviving for words to be shared, each listening to the drumming of our failing hearts and wondering how many beats we had left until we reached the inevitable beat that would end our wasted lives.

* * *

**(X-Files theme music)**

**Hmm... arguably, I could have played (James Bond theme music) there. Take your pick; whatever suits the mood.**

**So there's the prologue :) Now you guys have a small taste of what may be coming in the not-too-distant future, I urge anyone intrigued by this story to SUBMIT a character! There may only be four available spots, but I'd really like some variety and flavour in the character team I end up with. **

**And it's all down to you guys; it's out of my nimble-fingered hands! **

**Read and Review, lovelies... and while you're at it, SUBMIT! ;)**

**Until the next update,**

**Cherrie-Sakura**

**xxox**


	3. Code X: One

**Greetings, readers and writers of Fiction!**

**So, I know I promised a M.A update, but this story needed the update more. I'm having a trifle difficulty finishing chapter ten of M.A, admittedly. I'll get there. I'm just procrastinating at the moment. I'm a very good procrastinator.**

**Thank you to everyone for the submissions - your characters made this a difficult choice! THANKYOU for that! It's nice to have, as I have said before, some flavour in the array of hero/ines.**

**To the authors whose characters star in this story: I hope they are in-character. I really tried to get into the minds of each of them.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew, or any other mentioned Trademarks, Novelties, Brands or Businesses. I don't even own these OCs!**

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

**... Reflection ...**

* * *

When I look back over everything that happened, I like to go back to the very, very beginning. When it all began. That little point in time – that fraction of a moment, like a tiny, foreboding pause (though I was, of course, completely unaware of it at the time) – where my life changed. I imagine it being like someone pressed a button somewhere. I can hear the imaginary 'click' in my mind, as clear as a whistle; can picture the flow of life after the click being tinted a different shade, like black and white to sepia, as if there was something not quite the same about life after the click, as opposed to life before it.

I was seventeen years old. It wasn't too long after my birthday... Well, from what I can remember, anyway. It's strangely fuzzy, actually, trying to remember what happened from the time before Code X. It's like watching a home movie. You look at it, your eyes fixed on the screen, with a strange feeling of familiarity gnawing away inside you, but it's like what you're seeing is a film; it doesn't feel like it ever actually happened to _you_.

My memories were like that.

My last, crystal clear memory is of a normal school day. I woke at my usual time of half past six to a breakfast of muesli and fresh fruit my Mom habitually prepared for me before she went to work. It was the standard routine for me: rise, eat, shower, dress, pack bag, leave. I checked myself over once in the mirror in the front hall, making sure my uniform was sitting right before I left.

The thick pleats of my skirt brushed against my legs as I walked to the train station, the buds of my shiny black I-pod plugged in my ears. The music blared, filling my mind, making it easier to ignore the pointed glances I received from my fellow citizens. Mostly, they stared because of the way I looked. My red-brown streaked blonde hair wasn't exactly common to start with, let alone the kohl smudged around my mysterious, deep blue eyes.

Yes, for your information, I _am_ Japanese. Pure Japanese, born and bred. Just for the record.

Some of them stared, though, at my black-and-white striped over-the-knee socks, which I wore in place of the usual plain black; or at the blood red ribbon tied around my neck like a choker... or at the spooky skull that dangled from the ribbon on a thread of gothic black lace.

Whatever. People stared, and I ignored them.

The train ride to my high school was short and uneventful, as usual. I sat in my customary seat, third from the far door, by the window, so I could gaze pensively out the glass window at the city rolling past. Again, I felt people's uneasy, curious glances, but I was so used to them that they didn't even faze me anymore.

The train slowed, and I stood, recognising the stop, and, in the far distance, the top few floors of my high school – the signature, clean white walls and the shining, tinted black windows. The bell tower rose higher than any other part of the building, sticking up from the top of the school like a particularly tall tree in a forest.

The weather was pleasant that morning. Blue sky peeked out from a cover of fluffy white clouds. The doors of the train slid open, blowing a few strands of my hair around my face, and I stepped onto the platform, joining a crowd of students flowing towards the stairs down to the exit.

Walking from the station to my high school takes a total of eleven minutes and forty-eight seconds. Eleven minutes and forty-eight seconds after walking out onto the street, I was walking through the tall, black steel gates and following the concrete path to the sliding, double-doored glass entrance to the building.

The walls of the school halls were fresh and white, to contrast with the jet black of the fitted blazer and short, pleated skirt that served as the uniform for Kumori High School(1). The only speck of colour in our otherwise dreary dress code was the neat, lavender ribbon tied in a bow under the white collar. The carpet – perfectly clean, as always – was lavender to match.

We were a very colour-coordinated school, Kumori High.

Climbing three sets of wide, marble staircases until I was on the fourth floor, I found my locker – number four-eighty-nine (I'm surprised I still remember) – and opened it, pulling out the textbooks for my first class, World History, from the line of binders I organised neatly every afternoon before I left. Adding my planner – black, with an adorable picture of 'Jack' from Tim Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas _– and my pencil case, I re-locked my locker, regretfully removing the headphones from my ears and leaving my I-pod behind.

When it came to rules, Kumori High was among the strictest and most diligent of schools, and I-pods fell under the same category as cell phones. Big no-no.

I kept my gaze carefully focused on the carpeted hallway as I made my way in the direction of my classroom. If I'd looked up, I'd have been susceptible to the pointed glances that followed me everywhere. Seriously, the students at Kumori saw me five out of seven days a week – you'd think they'd be used to seeing my strikingly white-blonde hair after the first few months. But two-and-a-half years into my education at Kumori, and I still arrived at school every morning feeling like a circus freak.

I was walking back down the marble staircase when it happened. Still looking down, I didn't notice the girls heading up, and one bumped me.

"Back off!" I snapped automatically, without thinking, then immediately froze up, regretting it. I had a tendency to let my mouth run whenever it felt like it, which turned out to be often. Which meant, I often ended up in trouble, courtesy of my uncontrollable, run-away mouth.

"Excuse me?" the girl demanded, and I lifted my blue gaze to see who it was. Kaname Karin – tall, brazen, and popular beyond belief – stared back at me with threateningly dark brown eyes. One of her perfect, ash black eyebrows arched in a dangerous twitch, and she flicked her long, silky black hair over her shoulder.

I'd have run away, but I was already in too deep. All the students on the stairs had paused, stiff like statues, and were watching with wide eyes, juniors and seniors alike.

"I said, watch it," I said bravely, my voice breaking and betraying me, exposing some of the fear that was coursing through my veins. The volume of my voice was louder than I'd intended, and she smirked a little at me.

"Well, maybe _you _should watch it, Kochou-san."

I cowered a little where I stood, inching away from her. However, I held her sturdy gaze defiantly, sensing the tense atmosphere rising between us. At any minute, she would raise her long, elegant arm, and punch me in the nose.

"Is there a problem here, Kaname-san? Kochou-san?" a curt, aged voice cut through the icy silence like a knife. We both turned instinctively – by instinct, I also mean respect; teachers at Kumori High held utmost power and were practically treated like royalty – and bowed our heads automatically, neither of us looking at the other.

"No, ma'am," Karin replied smoothly. Madam Shizuka glared down her pointed nose at us with beady eyes that glinted behind her oblong spectacles. Trouble, like I-pods and cell-phones, was not tolerated at Kumori High.

"Move along," she commanded briskly, and, risking a quick glance at Karin, I moved to pass her. Her dark eyes were unforgiving, warning. But she said nothing, allowing me to continue down the stairs.

"Tsuki!" a female voice greeted the moment I walked into my classroom. I made my way between the single wooden desks towards the one I occupied up the back. It was Mina who had called; she waved at me now, her small face lit up by her perpetual beam.

"Where have you been? You're normally here by now," she hissed as I sat down. I glanced at her, watching her play with one of her long, thin black braids with small, nimble fingers.

"Almost got into a catfight with Kaname-san," I muttered in a low voice, not wanting anyone around us to hear. Kumori High was a shocker for gossip, being an all-girl private academy full of students with nothing interesting happening in their privileged lives.

Contrary to the mediocre, I was there on scholarship.

"Unintentional?" the voice of Haru, the third member of our small party and my other best friend, chimed in, sounding both lazy and bored at the same time. She leaned over from Mina's other side, her mouth pulling up in a languid smirk. Her thick black ponytail tumbled over her shoulder, her wispy fringe falling in her eyes, as always, despite her having pinned her bangs back.

"Of course," I retorted, annoyed. I never meant to start fights with girls who always turned out to be either physically bigger than me, or just higher up on the popularity hierarchy. It just... happened.

All the time.

Mina's soft, chocolate eyes twinkled at me.

"Are you coming to the cultural festival this weekend?" she asked, knowing full well what my answer would be. She just liked to chatter.

"Of course," I said again, rolling my eyes. "Where else would I be?"

"Uh... Kanako's picnic?" Haru suggested, and my heart thumped as I remembered the date with a pang of surprise.

"Or," Mina added, "Riku's birthday party?"

"Shoot," I muttered. I was pretty sure I'd RSVP'd to both of them. But now the problem had arisen: How to please them all without offending anyone?

"Which one are you guys going to?" I asked, tapping my black-bat-and-smiling-orange-pumpkin-printed nails against the tabletop. I liked to alternate the patterns on my nails to go with whatever was happening at the time – to go with the season, if you will. At the moment, Halloween was approaching, so I'd prepared early.

"Kanako's," Mina replied automatically, as Haru said, cryptically, "Neither."

"Where are _you _going?" Mina and I demanded at once. Haru smiled knowingly at us, her eyes glinting mysteriously.

"I'm going to the cultural festival... With Hiro."

"_Tadana Hiro?!_" we simultaneously gasped, our eyes wide. Haru smirked proudly.

"When did this happen?" I asked, impressed.

"Tuesday. He invited me after Track."

"You are _so _lucky," Mina sighed, going all gooey on us. She had a tendency to do that, being so wrapped up in her romantic dreamland all the time. I simply rolled my eyes at her theatrics and turned back to my more interesting – of the immediate moment – friend, who had much more pressing matters to discuss.

"And?"

"What?" she asked, feigning innocent oblivion, which I saw through straight away, as always.

"Details!" I snapped impatiently. "You have–" I checked my watch "–precisely fifteen seconds to spill before Monsieur Hotaru arrives. Go!"

Yeah, the 'Monsieur' and 'Madame' thing is just something the Kumori girls do. It goes with the 'respect-the-honourable-teachers' thing.

Alas, I had miscalculated the amount of time remaining before World History officially began; Monsieur Hotaru walked in a mere eight seconds later, right when Haru was reluctantly reaching the part where _The _Tadana Hiro – only the boy she'd been chasing tirelessly for six months, fourteen days and five hours (not that anyone was counting) – asked her to be his date for the cultural festival. I mean, could have picked any worse a time to interrupt? Seriously!

I guess when you look at it, me remembering all the details about that day isn't that much of a wonder. It _was _my last normal day, after all, and I thought about that day over and over later on when things got especially hectic and crazy. I _still _think about it, even now, obviously. In comparison to my life after that utterly mediocre, ridiculously ordinary school day, that calm, casual, typically teenage morning is a blissful memory of the luxuries I once had.

World History dragged on, boring me to death within the first ten minutes. I ended up doodling rough, thumbnail sketches of the characters from _The Nightmare Before Christmas _and _the Corpse Bride _in my notebook. To say that I liked Tim Burton's animated films would be both stating the obvious, and a massive understatement. They were my obsession of the moment.

When the bell rang – three melodic chimes that always reminded me of angels and what bells must sound like in Heaven – Monsieur Hotaru wrapped up his mundane lecture and strode out of the room. I dropped my World History textbooks on the floor and took out my books for round two: Korean.

Why they made us learn a ridiculous amount of languages at Kumori High is something I still can't answer, even now, with all the knowledge I've attained, and all my worldliness.

But it doesn't matter, anyway, because, like it or not, Korean was our next class, and all the conversations in the room switched automatically to Korean, as was the Kumori custom.

"_As I was saying_"_, _Haru picked up where from she'd left off when Monsieur Hotaru had interrupted. "_I was just standing there, stretching after the two-thousand-five-hundred metre run, and he just walked up to me... Yes, literally just walked up, Tsuki–_" she'd caught my expression as the question had risen to my lips "–_and he just went, 'Are you going on Saturday?' Of course, me being me, I said, 'Yeah, to visit my Grandma. Are you?'"_

"_Oh, don't tell me you had one of your stupid 'Haru' conversations,_" I groaned in Korean, shaking my head sadly. She smirked at me.

"_Well, considering I _am _Haru_," she pointed out, her black-brown eyes amused. I waved my hand, urging her to continue.

"_Anyway, so he just looked at me, confused, with that cute expression on his face – you know, the one where he sort of scrunches his nose up and that little dimple appears in his chin?" _

"_We're not all in love with Tadana-san, Haru, and we don't stalk him like you do – wait, he has a dimple in his _chin_?"_ I gasped, impressed at her observations. She grinned, her cheeks red.

"_Yes, and it's beautiful,_" she said matter-of-factly. _"ANYWAY, so he's looking confused and he just goes, 'To visit your Grandma? No, not exactly.' And of course, I laughed, because he's so funny–"_

"_Hilarious_," I said dryly, my voice thick with sarcasm. She ignored my comment and continued.

"_And then he says, 'Actually, I meant the cultural festival.' And then he gave me that gorgeous smile of his and goes, 'If you're not still visiting your Grandma around six o'clock, do you want to maybe come with me?' And I swear, I died, but at the same time, I almost exploded with joy!_" she jabbered, quite uncharacteristically for Haru. Oh, the wonderful powers of love.

"_Yes, it sounds like you almost mysteriously self-combusted, which, generally, does result in death,_" I replied, rolling my eyes. "_Though normally people don't almost-self-combust from happiness._"

"_Why _do _people mysteriously self-combust_?" Mina asked suddenly, her voice thoughtful. Haru and I turned to her, incredulous. When in the world had she started paying attention?

However, our response to her question was cut short when our Korean teacher, a short, bustling woman named Madame Yamada made her – wait for it – _bustling _appearance. I swear that woman's main point in life was to bustle around everywhere. She was always in a hurry, and she was always tripping over things, or shuffling along like she was running late to every place she was meant to be.

This morning was no exception.

Coincidentally, she _was _late; normally Haru and I couldn't hold that lengthy a conversation between classes.

Korean passed a little less tediously than World History. Regardless, I was still relieved when the chimes rang clearly, signifying the end of it. There's only so much Korean one can handle before losing a few billion brain cells. Korean, like Chinese and Indonesian, is good in small dosages. The European languages are, I find, surprisingly easier to handle than the Asian languages, even though they're decidedly more complicated.

Anyway, lunch passed uneventfully – surprisingly – as did the classes that followed; Chemistry, Calculus and Spanish.

Yes, Japanese people _can _speak Spanish, as amazing as that sounds. They can also speak French _and _German, though it's pretty funny when one listens to us try. We struggle a bit with that significant 'ch' sound, y'know... the sort of guttural hiss-slash-growling noise made at the back of the throat, which applies to words like 'ich', 'mich', or 'kirche'. Most people just don't know how to make that noise. Personally, I find it quite a vulgar sound.

But anyway, that's an unrelated topic, so let's get back to more pressing matters.

The point is, the afternoon that followed was just as uneventful and normal as the morning had been. I played Hangman with Haru in Chemistry, drew a pretty good version of Emily the Strange in Calculus, and wrote a poem in Spanish.

It was actually pretty good, I thought, reading over it as I made my way back to my locker to change my shoes and pack my bag to go home. It was one I could consider submitting in that competition I'd found recently in the newspaper.

Having trained myself not to notice the people around me, I didn't realise that the hall was strangely quiet, and I slipped off my indoor slippers, exchanging them for the simple, Cuban-heeled, slip-on black leather shoes I wore to and from school. Nor did I realise, as I carefully re-organised my locker (as usual), that the hall was oddly empty. Nor did I notice, as I smiled and picked up my patiently awaiting I-pod, uncurling the headphones and clicking my lock over the shut locker door, the lone figure standing at the end of the corridor.

Of course, when I turned and started walking, I _still _didn't notice the figure, but I maintain that that was because he was standing as still as a statue – perfectly frozen, like he had been sculpted where he stood, silent as a ghost and pale like marble – so I couldn't have been expected to notice what my eyes weren't expecting to see when he hadn't made any effort to make himself noticeable. People always notice movement before they spot something stationary that is out-of-the-ordinary.

But when I glanced up instinctively, sensing the mysterious silence and the suspicious emptiness around me, my eyes locked immediately on the figure, and _then _I noticed him, my steps slowing intuitively as I regarded him warily.

He wasn't anyone I'd ever seen at Kumori High. He was tall and slender, his body almost feminine, his posture so impossibly perfect that even Madam Shizuka would have been jealous if she'd seen him. He was gazing at me without blinking, his steely eyes fixed on my face. His expression was impassive; unreadable. His skin was white, like snow, his hair long and stormy purple, tied in a severe plait down his back. His ears were large and pointed, like elfin-ears, sticking out either side of his head, rather oddly. They were perfectly horizontal; pretty much parallel to the floor.

I quickly glanced back down at said lavender-carpeted floor, concentrating on pressing the buds of my I-pod into my ears. But my fingers trembled as I scrolled my music selection, and my stomach squirmed with nerves. Whoever this strange man was, he was trouble, and the significance of the empty, silent corridor was starting to hit me.

Still not looking up, I sped up a little, licking my lips and swallowing – my throat had become very rapidly dry – as I made to walk past him, putting as much space between us as the corridor allowed, without appearing too obvious.

But he was waiting for me at the bottom of the marble staircase, his expression just as blank. I hesitated a few steps from the bottom, feeling my eyes widen and my heart start hammering furiously in my chest.

It was impossible. How had he gotten from the top of the stairs to the bottom before I had? There was no other way to get up and down the floors of the school. Had I fallen asleep in class? Was this a dream? If so, I was hoping to wake up very soon... As soon as possible, really. My heart sank a little, absurdly, as I realised that, if this _was _a dream, then I was probably sleeping in Spanish – my last class of the day – and couldn't have written that poem.

On second thought, it seemed a fair exchange; an imaginary poem for the disappearance of the potential threat waiting motionlessly for me at the bottom of the marble staircase.

I could always write another poem.

Again, I made to dart around him – he probably thought me a foolish idiot – but this time, his porcelain hand found my shoulder, and I found myself coming to an abrupt halt. He turned his head to look at me, his steely eyes boring into my own.

"Good afternoon, Kochou Tsuki."

And then – click – my life changed.

* * *

**... Day One ...**

* * *

I looked up in surprise as, for the third time since my arrival, two figures materialised in the small, square room I was being contained in. The first I was familiar with; it was the same purple-haired, white-skinned man who kept appearing and disappearing like a hologram. His long-fingered hands were wrapped around the arms of a small, slender girl, dressed in a high school uniform; one I didn't recognise.

He steered her over to the last of the four seats arranged in a perfect semi-circle in the middle of the room. The half-moon of seats – all of them now occupied – were the main feature of the room. Aside from them, the room was empty.

I stared silently at the shining tiled floor, and at the strange, stainless steel walls. A single, bright light stretched along the middle of the roof, shining painfully white light down on us. There was a single door in the corner, fashioned out of a thick sort of metal, and very heavily bolted from the outside.

We were prisoners. There was no doubt about it.

Though why it was, exactly, that we were prisoners, was something unfathomable to me. I let my eyes flick to the faces of my fellow captives.

I was sitting in the end seat, being the first brought here, and next to me sat a ridiculously tiny girl – no, child – skinny as all heck, with her thick, jet black hair tumbling down her back like a messy waterfall. She was sitting perfectly still, her legs somehow crossed so she fitted comfortably in the mightily uncomfortable chair, looking like she was about to start meditating. How she sat like that was a mystery to me; I hardly fit in the chair sitting _normally_, and the metal cuffs over my thighs and wrists didn't relieve any of the discomfort.

The chair on the other side of the olive-skinned child was occupied by a scrawny looking boy of about fifteen or sixteen, I estimated. His odd, sea-green eyes darted nervously around the room, his arms and legs jumpy and fidgety under their shackles. His rich, mahogany hair was scruffy, and long strands of it fell in his eyes. He kept shaking his head to clear his vision, like a dog shaking the water from its fur.

And the chair beside _him_, the final chair, was being occupied as I watched. The tall, slender man pushed the girl into it, and the mechanical shackles immediately slid up, encasing her thin wrists and thighs. To say she looked alarmed would be an understatement. If I had to describe the poor girl's expression upon that first sighting, I would say 'shit-scared'. Her face was pale as chalk, with a hint of pallid grey to it; her deep blue eyes wide, the pupils dilated until they almost covered the iris. She was sitting perfectly still, like the little girl beside me, but I could see from where I sat that she was trembling. Her lips, pressed together in a tight line, as if restraining a scream that was fighting to escape, were almost white – she was so tense.

The tall man stood motionlessly for a moment, surveying us all – an odd collection of random captives – and seemingly nodded to himself, once. His steel-grey eyes were very unnerving. I forced my gaze to fix on the tiles.

"Speak now," the man said, his deep voice a monotone that bounced off the steel walls in a faint, eerie echo. "You will not have a chance after this."

And then he was gone again. Just like that. I was still trying to work out whether he was actually real, or if he was a vision of some sort. It didn't make sense, though, if he _was _some sort of strange hologram; he'd very clearly just had a firm grip on a solid human being. And if he _was _human, then I was intrigued to know how he managed to just disappear on the spot like that.

No-one said anything. For starters, we had no idea who any of the others were. I'd never seen any of them before in my life. And then there was the simple fact that we all had no idea what was going on. Well, I assumed the others didn't know what was happening. I certainly didn't.

The eerie silence was broken only by the shallow breathing of the most recent addition to our little group; the pale-skinned girl with the strange white-blonde hair, the burgundy streaks in it stark against the blonde. Her eyes, rimmed with some kind of dark black make-up, stood out from her narrow face. Her breaths were ragged and shuddery. Clearly, she was quietly freaking out in her seat. Her knees were trembling violently, visibly knocking together. Her slender hands gripped the steel armrests, her knuckles white.

"Hey," I said, as gently as I could, but my voice still sounded too loud in the quiet room. "Relax... It's okay."

"Wh-wh-wh..." she tried to speak, her voice a weak whisper.

"I don't know," I replied, watching her, answering her unfinished question. _What's going on?_ The others watched us silently. She swallowed, still trembling, and nodded quickly, her frightened eyes flickering around the room.

"Yo, chill," the other boy said after a few moments. I glanced at him; he was frowning at the blonde-haired girl, looking scornful. "Obviously nothing's happening to us yet."

"Go easy on her," I said, somewhat sternly. "You weren't so cool when you first arrived, either."

He fell silent, glowering a little at me, but said nothing more to the girl nonetheless.

"I'm Kuro," a tiny, high voice announced from beside me. I glanced at the childlike girl beside me; she was smiling widely, her enormous, slanted, cat-like hazel eyes friendly and enthusiastic. She bounced her knees a little in the seat, seeming a little bored.

"How old are you?" I couldn't help asking. She grinned impishly at me.

"Eleven. How old are _you_?"

"Seventeen."

"Wow, you're _old_! You've almost finished high school, haven't you?" she asked, her voice a cute chirrup. She didn't seem to mind at all that she was being held prisoner in a forbidding metal room with absolutely no escape. "I'm only in fifth grade."

I restrained a frown. She was friendly enough, and I couldn't reprove her of that. It may have been completely inappropriate, but it was definitely lightening the mood in the room; the other two were listening to our conversation with considerable interest. Pale-and-blonde wasn't looking so terrified anymore, either. Her lips were almost normal-coloured again.

"I'm part Chinese," Kuro announced proudly, still bouncing her knees. She grinned at me. No-one responded, but she didn't seem to mind. It definitely explained the smooth olive of her skin, and the slanted shape of her eyes, I thought. She looked more oriental than the rest of us.

"What's your name?" she asked, turning her cat-like eyes to the boy sitting on her other side. He stared at her for a moment before answering.

"Kawaki," he said, then paused, as if hesitating. "Puretsu."

"Puretsu?" Kuro chirruped, delighted. "As in, 'pretzel'(2)?"

He glowered as she giggled.

"And what's _your _name?" he demanded, his green eyes flashing at me with irritation. His not-yet-fully-matured voice was defensive as he did his best to ignore the merry laughter of the small girl between us. She wasn't making any effort to conceal her amusement at his name.

"Tasukatai," I said gruffly. "Tai."

We fell silent, the mood of the room considerably uplifted despite our grim situation, and all three of us looked to the blonde haired girl, waiting.

She gazed at us warily, her blue eyes guarded, shifting her eyes slowly from one person to the next. Obviously she was deciding whether we were trustworthy or not.

"If you're going to be suspicious of anyone," I said, "be suspicious of the guy who brought us here. We're all in the same boat as you. You can trust us."

"Kochou," she said eventually, with a small sigh of reluctance. "Tsuki."

"Sorry, but I've gotta ask," the other boy said to her, a small smirk toying with the corners of his lips. She watched him, her eyes wary, a frown pulling down her blonde eyebrows.

"What?" she asked slowly.

"Did it hurt?" he asked her. Her expression became confused. Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, it clearly wasn't that.

"Did what hurt?"

"Well... when you fell from Heaven. I mean, with a face like that, you've gotta be an angel, right?(3)"

Did he seriously just say that? Across the room, Kochou's expression mirrored my own. Incredulous, unimpressed.

"Uh... was that a pick up line?" she asked, her voice flat. He smiled at her suggestively.

"Only if you want it to be."

"Eww... And you're _how_ old? Twelve?" she retorted scornfully. I hid my smile as I watched his face distort.

"I'm almost sixteen, actually!" he snapped, disgruntled. Kuro giggled beside me, highly amused.

"Really?" Kochou sounded disbelieving. He glared at her.

"Yes! How old are you?"

"Older than you," she said, rolling her blue eyes. He squirmed in his seat, clearly agitated.

"I dunno why I bothered anyway, you're kinda freaky-looking," he muttered.

"Hey, watch your mouth, pipsqueak!" Kochou was immediately defensive, angry. He glowered at her, and she glowered back.

"Who're you calling 'pipsqueak'?" Kawaki demanded. "I could take you out in a nanosecond."

"I'd like to see you try!" she shot back. "But you're sort of restrained at the moment, so I guess I'll have to take you up on that later, small-fry."

It was actually quite amusing, watching them banter. She was clearly much smaller than he was; I didn't doubt that he _could _take her out in a matter of seconds. He had pretty big biceps and sturdy-looking legs for a kid his age.

"Small-fry?" he snapped, outraged. "And who do you think you are, to look down your nose at me? What makes you so special, anyway, you snob!"

"Snob?" she laughed, her eyes flashing dangerously. "What the hell do you know about me, anyway?"

"Enough to know that you're a stuck up snob," he said childishly. She rolled her eyes again.

"You don't even know what school I go to," she pointed out. He examined the crest on her fitted black blazer.

"Ku...mo...ri High... You're a Kumori Princess?!" he sounded disgusted. She smirked at him.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"See, you _are _a snob!"

"And you're like an annoying kid brother. I feel sorry for whoever your siblings are."

"Hey, don't diss my family!" he yelled angrily, the muscles in his arms flexing under his metal shackles. She looked alarmed for a moment, but raised one slender, blonde eyebrow in a smirk. Wow, for whatever reason, the kid sure was protective of his family.

"Excuse me," I interjected, and I guess my politeness must've thrown them off, because they both looked at me, surprised.

"Yes?" Kochou asked.

"Can we not argue? I've got a feeling this small period of time right now is sort of important," I said, tired of their childish bickering. Kuro was still giggling light-heartedly beside me. Kochou and Kawaki exchanged another heated glare, then they both looked away, backing off.

"Thank you," I said sincerely. "I vote we try to work out why we're here. Why us? And why today?"

The other three were quiet, the light atmosphere dying between us.

"Maybe we've been kidnapped," Kuro suggested in her little bird voice.

"Well, that's a no-brainer," Kochou replied, then winced, as if she'd been stung. "Sorry... word vomit."

I wasn't really listening to her. I was focusing on more pressing matters.

"If we _have _been kidnapped," I began slowly, "Why?"

"Anyone here got filthy rich, celebrity parents?" Kawaki asked jokingly, no doubt trying to lighten the mood again. He glanced pointedly at Kochou, who flushed red, understanding the unspoken hint in his gaze.

"I'm there on scholarship," she snapped, her voice dangerous. He dropped it and looked away, to me. I shook my head.

"Nope," Komira added cheerfully. In my peripheral vision, I could see her knees _still _bouncing. Could she not sense how serious a situation this was? It was like she was at a birthday party, and someone was asking her if she wanted another cupcake, or a cup of lemonade.

"Yeah, neither," Kawaki sighed. "There goes that idea."

"Maybe we're an experiment," I said thoughtfully. The others looked at me, alarmed. Even Komira's cat-eyes were wide. I shrugged.

"Just a suggestion..." I trailed off, my voice a mutter. I didn't want to frighten anyone unnecessarily, especially not Kochou, who seemed particularly vulnerable.

"Like... guinea pigs?" she asked, her voice breaking a little. The idea didn't appeal to her, obviously.

"Yeah, maybe," Kawaki said eagerly, catching onto my suggestion. "Maybe we're in some kind of hidden lab somewhere, and that weird man is a demented professor, and he's going to test his latest creation on us!"

I glanced up at Kochou, who had paled considerably and was staring forcefully at her knees. She looked like she was trying to hold herself together.

"Enough," I said to Kawaki in a low voice. He looked over at Kochou and rolled his green eyes.

"Not _again_."

"Kawaki-san." The tone in my voice was surprisingly warning. He fell silent.

"Maybe it's a reality TV show," he said, after a moments' pause. Kochou and I glanced at him, both our expressions grateful for his choice of suggestion.

"Yeah!" Komira cried, liking this idea. "Maybe Hirano Aya(4) will come bursting through that door with a camera crew and we'll be on TV and we'll get lots of money!"

"Yeah," Kochou agreed, her voice soft. She didn't believe it, but she wanted to. That much was clear. I mused for a moment. How nice it would be if that really _were _the case...

All conversation ended there. In the next moment, four figures had materialised in the room. One was that same man again, his steely eyes just as emotionless as all the other times I'd seen him. The other three had various shades of hair; one golden, one maroon, one deep blue. All of them had snow-white skin. All of them wore white lab coats. All of them wore rubber gloves over their long, slender-fingered hands.

And all of them were as emotionless as the first one.

I focused my gaze back on him, or rather, something in his hands. It was a square metal dish. Whatever lay inside it rolled around, tapping against the silvery sides of the tray. He gazed at each of us in turn. I didn't like the feeling I got when his eyes rested on me, cold, unforgiving.

"W-what do you want from us?" Kawaki demanded bravely. He had more guts than I gave him credit for. I shot a brief, admiring glance in his direction.

The purple haired, steel-eyed man turned slowly to face him, a very, very small, terrifyingly sinister smile playing around his thin-lipped mouth.

"Oh, I don't want anything from you," he said, his monotonous voice soft. It was unconvincing and foreboding at the same time. His voice hinted at some unspoken joke, which undoubtedly meant trouble for us. He turned back around, his back to all of us.

"General?" one of his white-coated men questioned.

"Put on your masks," he replied.

"Yes, sir."

The snapping of the elastic as they pulled the white masks over to cover their noses and mouths broke the silence for a moment. It was a sharp, frightening sound, tell-tale of operating theatres, diseases, or homicidal maniacs, respectively. I shuddered a little in my seat, my muscles tense, and risked a glance at Kochou. She was petrified, like she was about to faint at any moment. Her forehead was clamming up, her lips a tight white line again.

I wished I could comfort her. But this time, I had nothing to say. I was just as terrified as she was.

"Are we ready, Doctors?" the purple-haired man asked. He glanced at me. "Make his double."

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent."

Double? What the hell did that mean?

He pulled a mask over his face and held out the dish to his associates. Each of them took one of whatever was inside – I couldn't tell; their backs were to me – and fiddled with it for a moment. Glancing across the room at Kochou and Kawaki, the two whose faces I could see most easily, I felt my stomach churn at their horrified expressions. Kochou started hyperventilating again.

And then the man turned to me, and I saw what was in his rubber-gloved hands. A sinister-looking, long needle, the point glinting in the brilliant white light. And a tiny little glass bottle, the label of which was so small I couldn't read it.

Bile rose up in my throat. Terror froze my thoughts, my muscles, my heart.

As far as I was concerned, medicine was like scorpions. The smaller they got, the more deadly they were. Going by that theory, that little bottle in his long hand was lethal.

I felt my eyes widen, heard my breath catch sharply in my chest. Needles. I'd never been good with needles. Scratch that. I _hated _needles. I was petrified of them. My heart thudded loudly in my ears, pounding in my chest. It felt like it was about to explode.

The man inserted the needle into the bottle, drawing a careful amount of the clear liquid into the vial. Then he pulled the needle out and squirted it a little, to ensure it was functioning properly. Drips of the liquid squirted in a neat line from the tiny point, splattering to the floor. I felt the sudden, uncontrollable urge to vomit.

Somewhere in my vague consciousness, I was aware of the noise the others were making. I could hear Kawaki protesting furiously to whatever was happening; could see Komira from the corner of my eye, squirming in her restraining seat, fighting against her shackles. And, faintly, I could hear Kochou's wild screams, her fearful shrieks bouncing off the metal walls.

But I didn't pay any attention to the others. My focus was entirely on the tall man walking slowly towards me. I watched him as if in slow motion, picking up on every little detail in my terrified state. I saw the knuckle of his left ring finger twitch as his finger flexed. I saw the crease in his pocket when he carefully dropped the bottle of liquid into it; stared at the shadows that marked where the bottle sat behind the white material. I saw the expression in his eyes shift subtly – so subtly – from vacant, to knowing, to impatient, and then to vacant again, so fast it was like I'd imagined it.

And I saw, with a horrible thrashing of my heart, his fingers resting comfortably on the needle; his light grip, his easy hold.

He stopped before me, gazing down at me, his expression grim, his eyes strangely triumphant. It was like he knew what was going through my mind, like pin-pointing my weakness like this gave him personal pleasure. I stared back, wondering what the expression was in my eyes, clenching my teeth in outrage as his cold fingers reached out and touched the skin on the inside of my forearm. He gripped my arm there, his vice-like grip acting like a compressor; my arm started to ache as the blood flow was stemmed.

I glared at him with as much fury as I could muster in my fearful state. He didn't seem to notice, or, if he did, he didn't show any hint that he cared in the slightest.

He held the needle more firmly in his long fingers, his eyes fixed on the soft inside of my elbow. As he leaned down a little, holding the needle, poised, I felt my breathing become ragged, uneven, heavy with rage. I tried to pull my arm away from him, but of course, it was useless. The metal bands over my wrists held it firmly in place.

"If you do not relax," the man murmured in vague amusement, "it will only hurt more."

"I don't... give a shit... what you think!" I gasped at him, my voice a furious growl. With a small smile, he gripped my arm carefully, and I knew. This was it. He held the needle for another precious moment, then swiftly jabbed it into my upturned elbow. The pain was immediate, excruciating, like fire in my vein.

I roared, my bellow filling the room, and thrashed in my chair.

Expressionless as a statue, he pressed down on the syringe, pushing the liquid into my arm. I hissed at him, sucking in my bottom lip and biting down on it so hard I could taste blood on my tongue. After a few moments that felt like dragging minutes, he quickly removed the now empty syringe and placed it back in the metal dish.

My vision swam. I was still thrashing, still struggling, but my body felt strangely sluggish, my muscles burning with the strain. My head span uncomfortably, reeling, like the world was spinning. I tried to focus my fuzzy gaze, staring up at the roof, at the bright white light. It was burning my eyes, I could tell, but I couldn't see straight, and it was scaring me shitless.

And then, an unbeatable exhaustion washed over me, draining the muscles in my arms and legs of all the energy they required to fight. I felt my body relax in the seat, felt my heart racing spastically in my chest, felt the beads of sweat rolling down the side of my face from my hairline. My eyes rolled around, trying to focus on something that wasn't blurry, and I felt my lips sag as my mouth went slack.

I couldn't fight any more. I couldn't even think any more. I gave in to the exhaustion, letting my eyes slide shut.

Little did I know that, when I eventually opened them again, life as I knew it would never, ever be the same.

* * *

**No, this is not two chapters shoved together. This was one chapter. Just clarifying that. Ha-ha.**

**O-o-okay! Time for some notes!**

**(1) 'Kumori' means 'Shadow' in Japanese. So Tsuki attends 'Shadow' High School :)**

**(2) 'Puretsu', as I have been informed, DOES mean 'Pretzel' in Japanese :D**

**(3) This line, I nicked straight from 'The Perfect Man'. Lawl Lenny. I just couldn't resist - it's such a BAD pickup line! :P**

**(4) Hirano Aya is the voice talent of many female anime characters, including Suzumiya Haruhi and Konata from 'Lucky Star', AND she sings, too! Go, Aya! ;)**

**So there you have it, the first installment of Code X: Operation H-Elite. As you should be able to tell, this story is a little bit different from my usual work. It's... well, how can I say it? Darker? More serious?**

**Whatever, it's really fun to write! How evil is Pai? O_O**

**Keep your eyes open for updates to either Code X or Mew Academy! Oh, and if you've got a moment, and you're a Twilighter, check out my most recent poll. Thanks! :)**

**Until the next update, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW, Lovelies!**

**Cherrie-Sakura**

**xoxo**


	4. Code X: Two

**Dear Fictioners,**

**No, this is not a hoax. You really, truly, actually are reading the opening A/N to a new chapter of Code X. I know, right? HOLY SMOKES! The muse bunny has returned from its six-month vacation to another galaxy. (-cheering-)**

**Yes, it has been forever and a day since I last updated poor Code X. I've had several pokes in the side and a couple of concerned PMs since then, so I felt it was time for me to do something for the loyal readers who showed true concern for the welfare of this story. To everyone who pestered/questioned/reminded me in regards to Code X, this update is for you, along with my thanks.**

**Please note: I seriously struggled my way through this chapter. It was so hard to write. So take that into consideration if it seems a little different to the previous chapters. To the authors of the OCs in this chapter, I apologise if they're a little OOC. I confess I'd practically forgotten who they were before I started this chapter, so I had to reintroduce myself to them all. (-nervous laugh-)**

**I hope you enjoy this sporadic, unexpected update, and please drop a review if you read this. I'd really appreciate it :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew. I also do not own these OCs.**

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**... Day Two ...**

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**... Day Three ...**

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**... Day Four ...**

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"Is it working?"

"Yes... The process will be complete in a mere few days."

... Process?

... What process?

Their voices were faint; very, very faint. I don't even know if they were real at all – they were probably part of a strange dream I was having at the time.

I was vaguely aware of the strange bubbling noise around me, and that I didn't seem to be able to do anything but think... If I was even thinking at all... I really had no idea what was going on. It was all very hazy.

"A few days," the voice said again, whispery, fading as the exhaustion consumed me once more, dragging me back into the darkness.

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**... Day Five ...**

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**... Day Six ...**

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**... Day Seven ...**

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My thoughts swirled around my mind at a hundred miles an hour. Random images flashed to the surface of my consciousness, making absolutely no sense at all. Buildings and faces, appearing rapidly and disappearing just as quickly, like a slideshow on extreme fast-forward. It was exhausting me; my mind was reeling from the effort of trying to keep up, trying to make sense of what I was seeing... or being shown.

The bubbling was around me again... Though this time it was much louder, more realistic. It didn't sound quite so much like it was part of a demented dream anymore. I became aware of other noises, too, when I paid closer attention. Sharp taps against what sounded like a tiled floor... footsteps? They were quite rhythmic. Whoever it was, they were either pacing, or they had a very polished cane. Somewhere beyond the tapping noise was what sounded like a heart monitor, or several. My extended consciousness was filled with shrill, consistent beeps, but they were sort of muffled, like they were in another room... a sound-proof room, or something.

Curious, I slowly opened my eyes.

And received the shock of my life.

The world was blue.

I tried to turn my head, to examine this absurdity, to see if the blue-ness stretched all the way around my peripheral. But then – shock of my life number two – I discovered I couldn't move. Anything. Not my head, or my arms, or my legs, or my neck, or my eyes, or my mouth, or even my little pinky. I was frozen, like a statue.

So I stared straight ahead, panicking internally.

And then I realised that, somehow, I had managed to open my eyes.

A person appeared before me, his skin tinged blue. Were my eyes doing this to me? Was there something wrong with me? I examined him carefully, a sense of familiarity washing over me, one that I couldn't place.

He was tall, and thin, almost like a girl in his build. He had long arms and long legs, and a thick braid hanging down his back. Not only that, his ears stuck out either side of his head... What a funny-looking guy...

He gazed up at me, a strange expression in his eyes. It was fond... sort of the way someone might look at a favourite pet, or a baby, even. It didn't suit this strange dude one bit.

"Good morning," he said softly, sounding somewhat mystified. Oddly, his voice was distorted. Again, I had that impression of a sound-proof room. His voice was sort of muffled.

And then a few bubbles floated in front of my face.

What the...? Bubbles?!

I attempted to move my head again, and was pleasantly surprised when I had some success. I was now able to turn my head just a little to the left and right. But it still wasn't enough to properly check out my surroundings.

And then it hit me, in one big epiphany.

The world was distorted – the sound muffled, the whole thing painted blue – because I was inside a huge, cylindrical tank filled with some kind of liquid.

Want to know how I knew?

Because, directly opposite me, on the far wall, were two cylindrical tanks, filled with blue liquid. They seemed to glow, providing the only light in the otherwise dim room. Two plus two is four.

Inside each of the tanks was a person; one a boy and one a girl – I could tell from their body shapes – and an assortment of tubes and wires were connected to various parts of both. As they breathed – their chests rising and falling rhythmically – the tubes let little bubbles of oxygen, or whatever they were breathing, escape somehow, and they rose towards the top of the tank in little trails that floated past the occupants' faces.

What the hell were we? Some kind of mutant aquatic pets?

I blinked at the strange man standing before me, again feeling as though he were somebody familiar to me, but for the life me not being able to figure out why.

"Are they awake yet?" a purring voice asked from somewhere in the room. A bright square of white light on the left wall indicated a door had been opened, and the white was the light from the outside world flooding in. Whoever had spoken was silhouetted in the doorway – a figure of black against a blinding backdrop.

"One is."

The figure from the door moved to the side of the man before me, and they both gazed up at me, their eyes wondrous. I examined the newcomer with interest. He wasn't as tall as the first, and his hair – I had no idea what the colour was; the blue of the tank obscured colours – was tied in two low pigtails. His eyes, gleaming up at me from where he stood, were actually pretty captivating – the total opposite to the other guy's, which were practically dead – if they weren't so damn terrifyingly sinister. He smirked at whatever he saw in my eyes, his lips curving up in a smile, revealing a set of pointed fangs.

"Amazing... You've really outdone yourself this time, _General_." The purr was mocking.

"Come, Lieutenant," the taller, boring-voiced one said stiffly. "Let's not waste any more time."

They both ghosted away into the shadows, and I had no idea what they were doing – they obviously hadn't left the room, or I would have seen them in the light from the doorway – until the tank shuddered once, quickly, and a ripple pulsed through the liquid – water? – around me. Alarmed, I glanced about, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

And then room started moving. The floor started to rise, and I watched as my vision was cut off until I could hardly see anything. That's when I realised that it wasn't the room moving.

It was me.

Or, to be more precise, my _tank._

I saw nothing for a good while. Nothing but the interior of my cylindrical prison, and the darkness of its exterior. I guessed I was in some kind of tunnel, and guessed correctly (I assume, anyway).

Eventually, after a period of time I have no idea of the length of, I found another room coming into view from underneath me. I stretched my neck, trying to see more, and found that, again, I had more leverage in my movements. I twitched my fingers and wriggled my toes. But I still couldn't move my arms or legs, or anywhere around my torso. I quickly came to the conclusion that the ability of movement was working its way inwards, towards my chest.

The next room was painfully white. I had to squint at first, until my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. I gazed around curiously, taking in the computers along one wall, the electronic equipment set up all over the place. And the bench-like beds that reminded me strongly of operating tables, dotted evenly across the white linoleum floor.

The tank came to a rest with a little jolt. Another pulsing ripple swept around me, then the liquid stilled. The thought of how I was managing to stay alive in a tank full of water hadn't hit me until now, but somehow I immediately knew better than to panic. Something in the back of my mind registered this as unnatural; this placid acceptance of an unlikely survival underwater, but I let it go, because my instincts (instincts I'd never used before) told me to.

So I just accepted what was happening, and waited for the two men to appear (I assumed they would), which they did, a few moments later. Their footsteps echoed sharply against the floor as they walked towards me. In the light, it was easier to make out their features. Both, for example, had very pointed ears, and, even from behind my glass wall of blue, I could tell they both had chalky, white skin.

"Drain the tank, General," the smaller one purred, his eyes fixed on me, his expression one of anticipation. The taller one silently crossed to what looked like an extremely modern computer contraption, and tapped at the keys for a moment.

With another ripple that pulsed through the tank, it shuddered once again with a definitive thudding noise. Then, to my alarm, a loud gurgling filled my ears; surrounded me. I glanced at the swilling liquid, feeling it swirling against my oddly sensitive skin. With a jolt, I realised that it was being sucked out somehow; the water level was sinking, creeping past my forehead, my eyes, my nose, my chin...

The tank felt strangely hollow when it was empty of the liquid. I felt like I had echoes bouncing around me, like I needed to refill the tank somehow. But I didn't really have a lot of time to think. Pleasantly warm air rushed around me, gusting in from all directions, like I had several hair-dryers pointed at me. As my hair was blown out of my face, I heard rather than felt the tubes connected to my body retracting. Strangely, it didn't feel weird, having thick hoses clicked into your skin. It's hard to explain, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

There was silence for all of two or three seconds, while I wondered what the hell was going on.

And then the glass wall around me retracted into the floor, and I suddenly was exposed to the atmosphere in the room.

Cold. So, so cold.

I wanted to shiver, but, of course, in my current state of paralysis, it was physically impossible. But my eyes winced, portraying to the pair of men watching on the feelings I was experiencing.

It was so freezing, the air against my skin, that it felt like fire, burning all over my body. I felt extremely sensitive to my surroundings – I wanted to relieve my tender skin of its torture, wanted to throw something over my body, to protect it. I took a breath in through my nose, and, to my surprise, I found myself dissecting the different components – the elements of gas – in the atmosphere. Pure oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, sulphur... They were strangely distinctive to me.

And I'd failed Chemistry _magnificently_ last semester.

As I stood there, unable to move, my alarmed, confused gaze fixing upon the two men watching me intently, I became aware that the burning against my skin wasn't quite so bad. After the initial searing pain, it became rapidly more endurable, dulling down to an uncomfortable swelter, a bearable heat, and soon, merely a pleasant warmth.

I was growing accustomed to the temperature, I realised, without having to think about it. It was so strange, I mused, the sudden speed and ingenuity of my brain (well, it was an assumed ingenuity. Nothing about me had been particularly ingenious before, so I figured this must be what smart peoples' brains felt like). It felt full, heavy, and, in some fantastic way, absolutely supreme; like it was a computer of the highest, utmost technology. I almost felt awkward accepting it as my own; I'd always been a notoriously lazy student with a known disregard for school.

Three more figures materialised in the room. Seriously, how the hell did they keep doing that? It was freaky enough the first time they randomly appeared out of thin air – why couldn't they just use the door, like every other normal human being?

A thought hit me, causing my stomach to sink, and I came to a realisation that my newfound intelligence supported wholly.

The men standing before me were not human.

Several options jumped to mind immediately. The first was that they were a supreme race of human being, and that they might have changed me into one of them. It would certainly explain the newfound ingenuity of my whirring brain, and the strange sensitivity of my skin. The second was that, like that weird little kid had suggested before, this really was just some big television hoax. Disappointingly, my brilliant mind automatically rejected this idea.

The third was that they were some kind of alternate life form. Aliens, if you wish. One with a similar physical build and basic appearance of human beings, but with a different genetic make up and chromosomal balance.

Ooh, _chromosome. _

I didn't even know I could spell that word, let alone have a sudden, sound understanding of what it meant.

Go, new brain! Unleash your brilliance!

Wait a second.

What the heck happened to those other people? The ones I'd been stuck with before? The little girl I happened to randomly think about roughly four point six-eight seconds ago (holy smokes; I could calculate nanoseconds!)? Were they the people in the other tanks back in that creepy, dark room? Maybe they–

"Bring him here."

I snapped my gaze back to the potential super-human-TV-drama-aliens as the shorter one (the one that kept purring) crossed towards me and, his thin lips curling into a wide, dark smile, clasped his pale hands behind his back while he walked in a semi-circle around my once-glass-tank, now-cold-podium, gazing up at me speculatively.

The three newcomers who'd just materialised surrounded me, reaching up with rubber-glove covered hands to grab at my arms and legs.

If I'd had full limb movement, I would have kicked one of them in the face.

As it was, I was restricted to shouting profanities at them and squirming my semi-moveable arms and legs.

"Don't touch me!" I began, then felt the air catch in my throat. Was that _my _voice? That weird, echo-y, technical drone ringing clearly across the room? I sounded like a robot! Like there were two of me speaking at once. Ugh. Weird. At least my tone was the same as usual. It was like someone had recorded me speaking, then played it back twice, at the same time.

Oh well. Better just make use of the only weapon I had.

"Get your hands off me! Let go!" I snapped, feeling stupidly like a statue as I was lifted off the podium. The scientist dudes paid no attention to my demands, carrying me horizontally to one of the operation tables and setting me down, their eyes peering down at me with the now familiar expression of wonder.

I felt like a mutant animal at the zoo.

"What are you staring at?" I demanded furiously, summoning my strongest dirty glare and levelling it up at them. All three of them jumped back, their faces unquestionably alarmed.

Yeah. Take that, sissy scientist freaks!

"Relax, gentlemen," the cold voice of the 'General' rang out smoothly. "He's harmless at this stage."

At this stage? What the heck did that mean?

The tall man came into view above me then, gazing down at me coldly with cruel steel-grey eyes. They swept down the length of my body in one ceaseless movement, then flicked back up to my face.

"Fascinating..." he murmured quietly, his eyes intent as he bent closer to me, scrutinising me. Err... what the hell, dude?

"What do you want?" I growled, squirming uncomfortably under his inspecting gaze. Was it just me, or is a tall, sinister, potential alien who goes about randomly disappearing and appearing all over the place and stabbing big, huge, freaky needles in innocent kids' arms, and then closely examining their naked bodies considered 'creepy' in this day and age?

Well, I was damn creeped out, that was for sure.

He didn't answer me; just straightened up again, shifting his gaze to his minions.

"Move him," he demanded silkily. "Leave him in one-eighty-five, for now."

I didn't like the 'leave him' part of that sentence.

"Hey!" I cried, as the white-coat disciples hefted me up again. "Where are you taking me? What are you doing?!"

Just as I knew they would, no-one answered. Perhaps they couldn't understand English.

No. That wouldn't make any sense; the extra-specially freaky one spoke English. I could understand what he was saying. Unless I had somehow acquired multilingual abilities...

It seemed plausible enough, actually.

I experimented with moving my arms as I was relocated, and found that I had even better movement than I had a few minutes before. If my superior brain was anything to go by (and I strongly suspected it was) then I would probably have total mobility again soon.

The 'doctors', as Tall-and-Creepy had referred to them before, dumped me in a room not unsimilar to the one I'd met the other kids in – the big white one with the seats we'd been buckled into. It was smaller, though, and there was just one big square couch thing, which was seriously lacking in the back and arms departments. So really, it was just a huge cushion on legs.

Two of the doctors stayed with me while the third left again, returning a very short time later with a piece of folded material over his arm. He held it out to me wordlessly, and I took it, equally wordlessly.

Then they left. The lock clicked loudly behind them.

I sighed, my heart still hammering in my chest, and considered my options. I could holler and make a racket and pound my fists against the locked door until they got so sick of it they'd let me out to either move or torture me, at which point I could make my great Hollywood-worthy escape. Or I could just sit here and await my next fate.

I opted for the latter, ruling out the former as an ineffective strategy of survival.

If I did manage to get out of this room, where the heck was I going to go? Even if I made a mad dash, these crazy freaks would no doubt capture me again, and then my chances of being horrifically tortured would be majorly increased.

Hmm... torture... No, thanks.

I crossed slowly to the cushion-on-legs and let the material unfold in my fingers. It seemed to be some sort of body suit, made out of a fabric similar to that of a wetsuit. I assumed it served one purpose, unless it was some kind of demented blanket, and pulled it on without a second thought. I hadn't realised how uncomfortable being stark-naked was making me.

The suit was skin-tight, yet oddly comfortable. The legs cut off at the ankles, and the arms circled my shoulders, kind of like one of those wife-beater shirts all those American 'gangsta boiz' wore. The suction-suit was black, with strips of silver down the sides, and neat, careful lining. I realised I probably looked like an Olympic swimmer. I just needed the awesomely unflattering swim cap and shiny goggles...

I dropped down carefully onto the cushion-on-legs with a heavy sigh, and ran my hands over my face. My skin felt weird; soft and smooth - sort of like silk. I couldn't tell whether it was my fingertips that were so sensitive, or my cheeks. I came to the conclusion that it was probably both. My hair felt strangely fine when I ran my fingers through it, too.

Ugh. The sooner I could get out of this damn spooky place, the better.

I had no idea how long I lay on my back and stared up at the boring panels on the roof. It could've been hours, or it could've been a mere few minutes. Time was incalculable to me. I wouldn't have known if it was moving fast or slow. World Wars Four and Five could have come and gone and I'd've been none the wiser.

Eventually, though, loud shouts echoed along the corridor, muffled through the walls of my makeshift cell. Whoever was yelling was putting a considerable effort into it. They were shrieking and screaming like a banshee dancing on hot coals. With a loud click, the door was unlocked, and I sat bolt upright as it swung open loudly on its hinges.

"Don't _touch _me!" a female voice shrieked. "Let go of my arms! You're hurting me!"

"Just get her inside," one of the doctors instructed emotionlessly. A figure, manned on either side by the two other doctors, who had iron-like grips on her upper arms, struggled and flailed in the doorway, hooking her heels around the frame and arching her back to restrain against the pushing forces.

"I won't go in there!" she declared furiously. "I _won't_! Get OFF ME!"

The third doctor gave her a square shove in the back and she stumbled into the room, landing ungracefully in a splayed heap on the floor. It looked extremely painful, and I imagined it was, judging by the wails escaping her lips as she slowly picked herself up.

The door slammed quickly behind her. The lock clicked once more.

I examined the newcomer, wondering what to do. Part of me wanted to help her up – no matter how much of a stranger she was, inside I was raging at the way those men had treated her. I was not a guy who let the mistreatment of women slide. But a larger part of me hesitated. The girl had displayed potentially lethal violence, and I was not eager to be on the receiving end of it.

I watched her peel herself off the floor and sit back on her haunches, her face scrunched up in what could only be pain. This baffled me a bit. Sure, the fall had been a bit nasty, but she looked like she'd been hit by a bus. My eyes trailed over her as I tried to work out what it was exactly... that she was.

Her skin was extremely smooth – so smooth it actually _looked _silky – with the strangest colouring I'd ever seen. Like the rainbow shine of a patch of oil; it subtly shifted colour in the light, a strange mixture of metallic blues, greens and purples. Underneath it all, it seemed to be a basic metal-grey silver. She had long, straight hair that fell down her back, a shade of platinum blonde so white it almost hurt the eyes to look at her. She had slender limbs beneath her similar, wetsuit-like attire (also black, like mine), and highly attractive, modest curves; I couldn't stop my eyes from drifting automatically to her chest.

"My face is up here!" she suddenly snapped, and I forced my eyes up quickly. Whoa, she was a pretty little thing. Her facial features were sharp and angular, yet delicate. She had full lips and a slightly pointed nose, and long, neatly maintained eyebrows, which were narrowed over big, expressive eyes lined by long lashes. Right now, she was glaring at me hotly.

Now, I'd never been able to explain it, but something about me had always been extremely attractive to women. I was like honey, and they were like bees. They flocked to me in masses. Not one had ever been able to ignore me. I'd always gotten reactions out of females; I'd come to simply accept that as part of who I was.

And so, with this thought in mind, I rose casually from the cushion-on-legs and sauntered over to her. She stood quickly when she saw me approaching, her expression wary.

"Look, uh..." I said lazily. It always seemed to have a higher success rate if I seemed casually and comfortable, and this was bound to work. "I don't have a library card... But I'd like to check you out."

The silence was so heavy it was almost loud in itself. But it only lasted for two seconds.

The clap of her hand against my cheek rang sharply, wiping away my languid smile. Pain shot through my face. Excruciating, burning pain.

I bit back a yell and instinctively raised my hands to my searing cheek. It felt like someone was trying to rip the skin away from my bones. Before I knew what was happening, my knees had caved and I was crumpled on the floor, fighting the tears stinging my eyes, and willing the screaming pain away. I felt like screaming myself.

"Oh my God!" the girl's hazy voice cried above me, shocked. "I-I... I'm so sorry! Jesus, are you okay?!"

She sounded astonished, like I felt. Sure, I'd had my fair share of whacks from unhappy women in my lifetime, but nothing had ever been as agonizing as this. I fought against the roar that wanted to escape from between my clenched teeth.

I sensed rather than felt her collapse down beside me, her arms flitting around my shoulders and head in a kind of flurried desperation. She clearly had no idea what to do. But it was clear enough that she wanted to help somehow. I must have looked shocking.

I don't know how long we sat there. Eventually, the pain slowly subsided, ebbing away until I was just lying on the floor, half curled into a ball, my breathing slowly calming. The girl had taken to rubbing my back rhythmically.

I let out a long sigh. The back-rubbing came a halt.

"A-are you okay?" she asked cautiously. I nodded weakly and dragged myself up from the cool tiles. Her eyes raked over my face, examining the damage.

"T-there's no mark..." she trailed off, biting her lip. "I'm sorry... I didn't realise I hit you that hard..."

"You didn't," I replied, still astounded myself. Confusion warped her expression, then it shifted to annoyance.

"Ugh," she said, suddenly disgusted. "You're pathetic! You mean, you made a huge fuss out of nothing just so I'd _touch you_? Get a life, Pretzel!"

"No, I seriously didn't!" I protested quickly, catching onto what she was thinking. "I swear I didn't, I – hey, wait a second! You _know _me?!"

She stared back at me, unimpressed.

"You shallow bastard," she spat. "What the hell is wrong with you, pipsqueak?"

_Pipsqueak._

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed suddenly, looking at her in a new light. "_Kumori Princess_?!"

"Who the heck did you think it was?" she demanded, folding her slender arms across her chest. I couldn't reply; I was too shocked.

"What?" she snapped. "Even though you look even _more_ like a freak, I could still recognise you. Does it surprise you that we're not all as low as you are?"

She was sneering at me – baiting me – but I wasn't in any position to banter with her. I gazed at her face, my eyes narrowing as her metallic skin shifted under the industrial lighting. She stiffened, frowning at me uncomfortably.

"Don't look so shocked," she said loudly. "You look just like me, you know."

"What?!" I exclaimed. Was she for real? I glanced around hopefully for a mirror, or a window (even though my brain had already told me there was neither), to see if my skin had the same colour-shift sheen to it.

"Are you that stupid?" she demanded disdainfully. "You've got it all, pal. Creepy skin, white hair, freaky eyes..."

I hadn't even looked at her eyes properly. I did so now, leaning closer to her face. Her pupils were jet black – darker than the average human's – with the strangest irises I'd ever seen. They immediately made me think of computer chips; they were a kind of flat, army green in colour, with tiny, technical lines of gold crossing from one side to the other, and an extremely faint, hexagonal pattern detailing them.

I knew immediately that if any normal being looked at these eyes, all they'd see would be a strange, unnatural-looking shade of green. Only my superior vision, which must've accompanied my newly acquired superior intelligence, could make out all that detail.

But she'd seen it all, too, which meant she was probably a heck of a lot smarter as well.

Damn it. And I'd thought I was special.

"You can back off now, pipsqueak," she snapped hotly, and I obediently retracted my face from its close proximity to hers.

"What the heck have they done to us?" I asked quietly, my stomach twisting uncomfortably. I glanced up at her. Her expression was suddenly clouded with troubled dismay. I could almost picture her heart sinking in her chest (I craftily used this as an excuse to subtly examine her chest again, while she was gazing sadly at the wall).

We sat on the tiles in a glum silence, lost in our thoughts, neither of us feeling the desire for conversation, the weight of our predicament hanging heavily over our small, lonely confinement.

* * *

**... Day Eight ...**

* * *

I glanced around the room, hoping to find some sudden new detail in the boring furnishing. Sadly, the tiles were still as shiny, the wall paint still uncracked, the roof still as strangely clinical. I'd come to the conclusion that the lights in every room were those big, ugly, bright ones you normally found in factories.

Whoever had designed this place didn't design it to be very fun or pretty.

On the bunk above me, Tsuki rolled over, one of her pretty, shiny arms dangling over the edge of her bed. I couldn't resist; I reached up with my fingers to run them across her skin. It was just so _beautiful_ – like rainbows in the sky after it rained, or like those strange puddles of water I sometimes found in shopping centre parking lots – the blacks ones that shone rainbow in the sun.

Tsuki's fingers fought my hand away, and she mumbled something I couldn't understand in her sleep. My momentary fun ended, I reluctantly dropped my hand back to my lap, trying to stop the pout that wanted to spread. I didn't want to sulk – I'd always been told that people didn't like girls who sulked, and I wanted my new friends to like me – but it was really hard trying to find something fun to do in such a boring room.

We'd been here for hours and hours now – maybe even a whole day - and I had no idea why we were in here, or what we were waiting for. The small room had two bunk beds against either wall, and a door leading to a toilet in the corner. We'd been locked in, and the big boy whose name I still couldn't remember had thoroughly searched the entire place for some kind of exit, so we could try to escape.

There weren't any. I thought we could maybe pull up a tile and dig our way out, like those prisoners did in that famous movie I'd never seen, but the big boy said that wouldn't work. There weren't any vents in the roof for air, either, so we couldn't escape that way. Even the bathroom was carefully secure.

"I hate it here," Pretzel complained. I looked over at him.

"I want to go home," he continued. Tsuki sighed above me.

"Me too," she mumbled. So she wasn't really asleep, after all. Sneaky! She was a good actress. She could probably even be on TV, if she wanted.

"Stop thinking about it," the big boy advised from the top bunk above Pretzel. "It'll only make the time pass slower. And we're clearly not going anywhere anytime soon."

Tsuki started to cry softly. It broke my heart, listening to her sobbing. I rolled off my bunk and scrambled up to join her, climbing across her curled body to sit near her head and stroke her hair. It was the only thing I could think of that might be comforting.

"Please don't cry, Tsuki-chan," I whispered. She was making me sad, too. I didn't like it when other people got upset.

"Sorry, Kuro," she mumbled into her pillow, hugging it tighter. The big boy and Pretzel glanced over at us, then looked away uncomfortably. Boys couldn't deal with girls crying. I knew that because once, when I was in third grade, and I was playing with my friends at school, a boy and a girl were fighting, and then he pushed her and she fell down and scraped her knee. When she cried, he looked horrified. Then he quickly apologised, and went to find a flower for her, maybe as a peace offering.

And that's how I knew that boys didn't like it when girls cried.

Tsuki let out a shuddery sigh, and reached up to wipe at her eyes. She sighed again, then rolled over to look at me with puffy eyes.

"Sorry," she said again. I smiled at her, pleased that she wasn't crying anymore.

"We'll be okay, Tsuki-chan," I promised. I knew that somewhere, our parents were worried about us, and would have called the police. Right now, there were probably teams of men looking everywhere for us, and our pictures would be all over the television, and stuck up in shop windows. It wouldn't be long before someone found us, and then we'd be safe, and we'd be able to go home again.

"Someone will find us soon," I said, voicing my thoughts. "And then the bad men will go to jail, and we can go back to school."

Pretzel laughed.

"Screw school," he said. "I just want to get out of here."

"You don't like your school?" I asked, shocked. How could anyone _not _like school? It was so much fun! "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," Pretzel replied, shrugging. "I just don't care about school."

"But why?" I asked again. "Don't you like seeing your friends and your nice teachers?"

"School gets harder when you get older, Kuro," the big boy explained. "Kawaki here probably just doesn't like the work."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I turned back to stroking Tsuki's pretty, white hair. My hair used to be black, but it was white like hers, too, now. I didn't know how we suddenly all came to have rainbow skin and white hair, but when we got out of here, we'd be our normal selves again, so it didn't really matter, anyway.

"Tsuki-chan?" I asked. She glanced up at me. "Will you play a game with me?"

"Sure," she replied, pushing herself up until she was sitting. "What do you want to play?"

"Mary Mack," I said immediately. I loved clapping games. She laughed lightly.

"I'm not sure I even remember how to play it," Tsuki confessed. But she seemed eager to learn, so I taught her as best I could. Pretzel and the other big boy watched us quietly as we clapped our hands together in a series of fun formations. Soon, Tsuki was as good as I was, and we were clapping our hands faster and faster, until we were both laughing.

Suddenly, the lock clicked, and we dropped our hands to turn expectantly.

The door swung open, and the three white-coated doctors walked in, along with the scary scientist with the purple hair.

"It is time," he announced to us, with a sort of grim, sinister smile. His grey eyes moved slowly from one of us to the next. "Come along easily, and there will be no need for extreme measures. Of course, you can try to escape, but I warn you, the consequences will be dire. And they won't be worth it."

A chilling silence settled over us, as we all decided on the spot to just go quietly. My skin crawled at the thought of being tortured. I didn't like hurting. And as long as there weren't any more nasty injections, I didn't mind going with them. If there was no pain, I was fine. Besides, maybe they were going to let us go home. You never knew.

"Fine," the big boy said finally, the first of us to speak. I guessed he was the leader of our little group; he was the oldest, anyway.

We slowly moved from our bunks and gathered in a small group. I reached for Tsuki's hand and curled my fingers through hers.

"It'll be okay," she whispered in my ear, offering me a weak smile. I smiled back.

The scary scientist led the way out into the bright, clinical corridor, and we were marched along for a while, one of the doctors in front of us, the other two behind us. We didn't speak; we were probably all too nervous to even swallow. My heart was beating very quickly in my chest.

"In here," the scary scientist instructed, and we followed him into a big square room with four chairs set up in a line, and a long desk with lots of computers. It was dark inside, and one wall was made up entirely of large, rectangular screens.

"Take a seat," the purple-haired man said with a wry smirk. He gestured lightly with one thin, bony hand to the seats, sweeping his fingers gracefully around. He was very elegant, for a man. As we reluctantly took our places, he crossed to the computers, clicking buttons and tapping away on the keyboards.

"You are no doubt wondering why you are here," the man's voice echoed around the room. None of us answered. It was obvious enough that that was what we were thinking.

"I'll start from the beginning, shall I?"

Again, we sat silently, simply waiting. The man nodded to the doctors at the back of the room, and one of them shut the door quietly.

"My name," the man said, "is General Pai, and I am the leading Professor of Scientific and Technological Research in this base. Well," he added as an afterthought that he seemed to find funny, "for the whole universe, really. Right now, you are being detained in the Astrophysical Centre for Development and Research – the ACDR – the Cyniclon intergalactic research base currently hovering several days from Io, and currently three hundred and seventy million miles from Earth."

"Wait, _what_?" Pretzel interrupted, sounding shocked. "You mean, we're in _space_?"

General Pai surveyed him coolly.

"That is correct."

"What the hell!" the boy exploded. "Who the hell do you think you are, just taking us away from Earth like this? And what the hell is a Cyni... Cyni... whatever you called it!"

"Cyniclon," General Pai said distastefully, glaring icily at Pretzel. "I ask you to hold your tongue, Kawaki Puretsu, or you will suffer the consequences of continually interrupting me."

Pretzel fell silent, glowering angrily in his seat.

"Now, the Cyniclons are a race superior to the human beings," General Pai continued, bringing up several pictures of people who looked like him on the screens. They all had pointy elf ears and pale skin. And they were all tall, for whatever age they were. Even the little ones. "We have an immense history that spans many millennia, however, the only history that concerns you is the one intertwined with your own history."

"Excuse me?" I piped up, sticking my hand in the air, having stumbled upon a question I really needed answered. He turned his steel eyes to me, and ice hit my stomach.

"Yes?" he said, permitting me to speak. I suddenly didn't really want to, but I did anyway, because I wanted the answer.

"A-are you... an alien?"

He surveyed me with a flat expression, and I knew my question was stupid, even though it was honest, and out of innocent curiosity.

"Yes, Kuro," Tsuki whispered quickly. "They're an alien race."

I nodded, my eyes huge. So aliens really _were _real!

"Now, I have brought you here to partake in a–"

"Excuse me?"

He turned his glare to me. I shrank in my seat. It was just a question...

"What?" he snapped, slightly impatiently. My cheeks reddened as I made my next inquiry.

"Is... Is ET real?"

The silence in the room was so thick it was like a balloon that was so full of air it needed to be popped to release the tension. One of the others – I don't know who – coughed violently, stifling a laugh.

General Pai chose to ignore my question, which frustrated me, because I had always wanted to know.

"I have brought you here to partake in a recent Cyniclon project," he said, "called Code X. Long ago, before human existence, the Cyniclons lived on the Earth. For thousands of years, we lived at one with the environment, ensuring that our every advancement left the natural surroundings untouched. But a glitch in our genetic makeup caused us to become incompatible with the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.

"Over time, our species became as good as anaphylactically allergic to the atmosphere. We endured for as long as we could, but when the deaths started increasing almost exponentially, we had no choice but to evacuate our people. We relocated to a planet known to our race as Proxis, in the thirty-eighth galaxy of the universe.

"There, we restructured our society, adapting ourselves to our new environment. Almost immediately, we began extensive research into finding a technology that would allow us to survive in the Earth's atmosphere. After centuries of trial and error, at last, we found our cure. One of our more dedicated professors, Doctor Suponji, stumbled upon a natural spring by chance, in which millions of stores of a purified substance we named 'Pure Aqua' had manifested over the ages.

"We discovered that, by inducing the Pure Aqua into our systems, we became adaptable to almost any atmospheric substance, enabling our survival in almost any climate. We tested this theory by dispatching squadrons of our people to experiment in establishing life on planets with different atmospheric substances. If we were talking exclusively in regards to your meagre solar system, it would be like testing to see if life could survive on Jupiter, Saturn or Mercury.

"Our research having proven correct, we decided to return to Earth to continue our inhabitation of our home planet. But of course, upon arriving, we discovered that our beloved planet had been reinhabited by the humans. Not only that, but, to our dismay, the new race seemed to show little regard towards the natural environment. We watched on for several years as our waters and forests were gradually destroyed, as the atmosphere became polluted, and the insolent beings below us filled the land with un-disposable waste.

"We simply couldn't stand by and watch our planet rot from the inside out. Eventually, it was agreed that drastic measures needed to be taken in order to ensure the safety of our planet. We launched several invasion tactics, but found that with each assail we were met by a force created specifically to counter us.

"After many futile attempts to overcome these pathetic excuses for environmental heroines, our leader decided to launch a full-scale attack himself. The battles were long and exhausting, but somehow, our enemy, Tokyo Mew Mew, managed to overthrow us. We were exiled, and returned to Proxis to start afresh, our determination concreted.

"And that is where you come in," General Pai turned back to face us, having watched the images flashing on the screens. The pictures of the rotting Earth, the colourful half-human-half-animal girls who made up Tokyo's infamous, heroic Mew Mew team, and the photos of the planet during the alien's time living on it had come to a standstill, and the screens had frozen on a comparison of two images: the Earth before human life, and the Earth after human life.

I had to admit, it looked a lot prettier 'before'.

"You are no longer human beings," General Pai announced. My stomach flipped over. I felt the colour draining from my cheeks. I was suddenly cold all over.

"What do you mean?" Tsuki stammered weakly.

"Exactly what I said," he replied silkily, turning his back on us again. "Your DNA has been warped and modified in a process we call H-Evolution. Your cells have been duplicated and customised, and your old, human cells have been replaced. You are now known as the first successful assembly of our latest experiment – a species of ultimately superior human beings known as Human Elite."

He turned back to us, smiling with a kind of sick pride.

"H-Elite."

None of us could speak. To be honest, I didn't really understand what he was talking about. But whatever it was, the others looked very scared, so I knew it was bad. Very bad.

"You four possess the abilities to annihilate the human race with ease," General Pai continued. "You will find your bodies have acquired a sudden surge in brainpower and physical strength. This is not unusual. Your new cells have presented you with a sort of self-re-energizing nucleus, which will allow you to use extreme amounts of energy without causing detrimental damage to your health.

"However, you have much training to do before you will be able to control your power levels. The physical stamina, strength and speed you have acquired is beyond that of any other human being – beyond that of any robot a human could design. You are virtually indestructible, unstoppable figures of power."

His words sank in, and my heart rate increased. Was he trying to tell us we were some kind of superheroes? Like Batman and Superman? I was momentarily excited. Maybe we could fly!

"What does this mean for you?" the big boy asked suddenly, in a low voice. A dark, scary smile spread across General Pai's face.

"We will train you in Proxis for the next week or so, until you are perfected specimens of H-Elite," he said. His cold eyes drifted along the line of us, coming to a rest on me. His thin-lipped smile widened, but it never reached his steel eyes.

"Then, you will be sent to Earth to destroy Tokyo Mew Mew."

He said it so lightly, it would have been less scary if he'd laughed evilly as well. The fact that he was so confident, so cold-blooded and calm about the whole thing made it _so_ much more terrifying.

"No!" Tsuki and Pretzel cried in horror. General Pai held up one thin hand for silence.

"Unfortunately for you, you have absolutely no say in the matter," he said. The way he said it made it clear he meant every word. I knew immediately that we really had _no choice_. It made my breath catch in my throat. Before I could help it, tears sprang up in my eyes.

"I don't want to hurt anybody! I don't want to be your monster!" I cried, clenching the arms of my chair so tightly my knuckles protested in pain.

"Dear child," General Pai said coldly. "Calm yourself."

But he couldn't make me do this. He couldn't make me go home and _kill _another person... other people. He couldn't! I didn't want to hurt anybody!

"I'm not a mean person!" I cried, tears rolling down my cheeks. "I won't go! I won't, I won't, I wo–"

My words were cut off by a sudden ear-piercing scream that filled every corner of the room. Excrutiating, mind-controlling pain pulsed through my body, searing through my brain. I realised the scream was coming from me. I clawed at my head in desperation. My ears felt like they were going to explode. My skin suddenly felt like it was being stretched over my bones. Burning pain flowed through my veins to every muscle in my body. I could feel them twitching and tightening – cramping up.

And all this was coming from my mind. My brain was the epicentre of the agony.

"Stop it!" I heard Tsuki's voice shriek wildly. "What are you doing to her?! _STOP IT, YOU MONSTER!!!_"

As quickly as it had started, the pain stopped. I lay frozen where I was for a moment, unable to move, my eyes as wide as they would go. Salty liquid dripped across my lips; a torrent of unstoppable tears ran rivers down my face. A slight dull ache resided in my mind as a reminder of the torture that had just been inflicted upon it.

I had no idea what was going on anymore. My head was spinning dizzily.

"Kuro!" Tsuki's faint voice called to me. Her blurry face appeared above mine, but it was difficult to make out her features. "Kuro, look at me! _Kuro_! What did you do to her?!"

"What you have just witnessed," General Pai's hazy, icy voice explained lightly, "is a simple method of punishment we have installed in order to control you. With the simple pressing of a button, your mind goes into a state of self-torture, firing motor neurons off to all muscles in your body. Thus, your body believes it is in pain – a pure, agonising, excruciating pain that fills the senses and renders you utterly helpless to its magnitude.

"Of course, the body spasms are nothing compared to the horror of the pain inflicted upon the brain. While you are not, of course, actually experiencing _real _pain, your brain is unable to tell the difference. Imagine the worst kind of headache you can possibly suffer, and multiply it by approximately four hundred and thirty-eight. That is the strength of the pain that will crush your mind."

He paused to let the enormity of this sink in. I felt arms around my body, and I was heaved up – from the floor, I realised. I'd somehow jerked my way out of my seat, and had ended up curled into a ball on the tiles. Tsuki's horrified face appeared before mine once more, her concerned, computer-chip eyes focused intently on mine. Her expression twisted to one of pure dismay, and I wondered vaguely what she saw in my eyes. I still felt like I had no control over my body.

"You can see by the state of little Komira, the effects this punishment will have on you," General Pai continued delicately. "Right now, she is like a puppet. She cannot think straight, she cannot move her arms or legs. She is completely unresponsive. She is not, however, brain-dead. Think of it as more of a state of temporary mind-paralysis. The effects will, of course, wear off. But she will need a decent amount of sleep before she will regain her consciousness."

In front of me, Tsuki's pretty eyes overflowed with clear, sparkling tears. Her lips trembled and pulled back from her teeth in a kind of snarl.

"You..." she spat out through furiously clenched teeth. Her voice wavered with rage. "You are a _disgusting_ waste of life! How – how could you do this to a _child_?"

"If you don't watch your tongue, Kochou-san," General Pai said coldly. "You won't be in much better a state."

More tears pooled, dripping from her eyelashes as she reached up with her hands to touch my cheeks. I wanted to assure her that it was okay, that I wasn't hurting anymore, that I could hear and see her. But I couldn't move. I couldn't even blink. So I just stared back into her pained eyes, trying to speak through mine.

"Now," General Pai said with a sense of finality. "From this point on, you will no-longer be known by your human names. I strongly advise you all to just accept your fate, and forget your old names."

A sharp intake of breath from my left indicated that either Pretzel or the big boy didn't like this idea.

"From now on, if you show signs of disobedience to any instructions issued, you will suffer the same punishment as dear Komira. Am I understood?"

The thick silence seemed to satisfy him.

"Tasukatai, you will now be known as E-four-two. Kawaki, your new name is E-six-eight. Kochou, you are now E-nine-five. And little Komira will be known as E-fifteen."

"We're _numbers_?" Pretzel cried. General Pai chose not to answer.

"I suggest you memories these, as it will make life much easier for you," he advised coolly. "After your training, you will be dispatched to fulfil your mission. Let me warn you now. You will be expected to complete your mission within the set time. You will have little under one month."

"And then what happens?" Pretzel demanded angrily.

General Pai was forebodingly silent for a moment, observing us with an expression of vague amusement curling his thin lips. He looked cruelly triumphant for a few seconds.

"If you are successful, your previous forms will be restored."

"And if we fail?" Tsuki snapped. Again, it was answered by a frightening silence. His shadowed face was unreadable this time. When he eventually spoke, his pale lips parted to murmur only two words.

"You die."

* * *

**Ooh, sinister. (-grins-)**

**Okay, I really can't be stuffed writing a post-A/N. I don't have the energy haha.**

**Oh! I do have one point to talk about here. The H-Elites' names will actually have the numbers in them in the coming chapteres. The spelling was just there so you all know how to pronounce them :)**

**So:**

**- Tasukatai, Tai is: E-42 (ee-four-two)  
- Kawaki, Puretsu is: E-68 (ee-six-eight)  
- Kochou, Tsuki is: E-95 (ee-nine-five)  
- Komira, Kuro is: E-15 (ee-fifteen) -- the one different one :P**

**Thanks for reading. PLEASE REVIEW!**

**Yours, **

**Cherrie xx**


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